Arcadia Illustrated

Hippolyte Petitjean
Pan IV (Arcadia)
ca. 1898-1900
lithograph
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Louis Fabritius Dubourg
Arcadian Landscape with Figures around a Monumental Fountain
1742
watercolor on paper
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Gaspard Dughet
Arcadian Landscape
ca. 1670
oil on canvas
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Thomas Eakins
Arcadia
ca. 1883
bronze relief
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Thomas Eakins
Arcadia
ca. 1883
oil on canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Herbert Arthur Hess
In Arcadia
1899
platinum print
Princeton University Art Museum

Jean-Jacques François Lebarbier
Arcadian Family
1800
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Isaac de Moucheron
The Three Fates in Arcadian Landscape
ca. 1710
watercolor on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Francesco Fontebasso
Et in Arcadia ego
ca. 1744
drawing (print study)
Morgan Library, New York

Jan van de Cappelle
Arcadian Landscape
ca. 1660
drawing
National Gallery, Athens

Richard van Orley
Arcadian Landscape
1702
gouache on vellum
Kupferstichkabinett, Kunstmuseum Basel

Jean-Pierre Norblin
Aqueduct in Arcadia
1784
watercolor and gouache on paper
National Museum, Warsaw

Jean-Charles-Joseph Rémond
Arcadian Landscape
1820
oil on canvas
private collection

Joseph Anton Koch
Arcadian Landscape
1792
watercolor and gouache on paper
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
Arcadian Shepherds
ca. 1535
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Ancient GreeK Artist
Head of a Woman
350-325 BC
marble
(excavated in Arcadia)
National Archaeological Museum, Athens

"There had been, from the beginning of classical speculation, two contrasting opinions about the natural state of man.  One view conceives of primitive life as a golden age of plenty, innocence and happiness – in other words, as civilized life purged of its vices.  The other conceives of primitive life as an almost subhuman existence full of terrible hardships and devoid of all comforts – in other words, as civilized life stripped of its virtues.  Arcady, as we encounter it in all modern literature, and as we refer to it in our daily speech, falls under the heading of golden-age primitivism.  But of Arcady as it existed in actuality, and as it is described to us by Greek writers, almost the opposite is true.  To be sure, this real Arcady was the domain of Pan, who could be heard playing the syrinx on Mount Maenalus, and its inhabitants were famous for their musical accomplishments as well as for their ancient lineage, rugged virtue, and rustic hospitality; but they were also famous for their utter ignorance and low standards of living.  . . .  Small wonder, then, that the Greek poets refrained from staging their pastorals in Arcady.  The scene of the most famous of them, the Idylls of Theocritus, is laid in Sicily, then so richly endowed with all those flowery meadows, shadowy groves and mild breezes which the "desert ways" of the actual Arcady conspicuously lacked.  . . .  It was in Latin, not in Greek, poetry that the great shift took place and that Arcady entered upon the stage of world literature."

– Erwin Panofsky, from Et in Arcadia Ego: Poussin and the Elegiac Tradition (1936)

"Also to Virgil's credit is the creation of the Arcadian setting – Snell's famous 'spiritual landscape' – which was to prove so influential in European pastoral.  But it is important to note that references to Arcadia in the Eclogues are actually rather few, and are moreover combined with features of Italian topography.  The precise import of Arcadia is much disputed.  It seems best to regard it as a remote, solitary setting for lovers' plaints and for song; . . . a place where poetry and love meet, avoiding the worlds of politics, cities, and empires."

–  The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edition), edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth